


Narrative Arcs

by rellkelltn87



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: #SVU21Challenge, Bisexuality, Character Study, Coming Out, Drabble Collection, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 19:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rellkelltn87/pseuds/rellkelltn87
Summary: 21 drabbles, a few narrative arcs on a crack pairing, a sunken ship, and old friends.For the #SVU21Challenge posed by@bensonsalex. Chapter titles are the challenge prompts.(Yes, I'm jumping the gun here by posting the entire series a week before the challenge officially starts, but I won't be able to get in front of my personal laptop every day during 9/5-9/26. I'll tweet a link a day during the actual challenge.)





	1. Hargiglasses!

For his sixth birthday, Noah brought home a nasty case of conjunctivitis. He kindly shared the oozing, painfully itchy pinkeye with his mother.

She had to wear her progressives to a meeting with corporate counsel the next Monday morning — the near-octagonal ones with a thick maroon-pearl rim — because the doctor at urgent care had said no contacts before the end of the week.

“Lieutenant Benson,” a familiar voice sounded from the doorway.

“Pippa,” Benson said, standing to shake Pippa Cox’s hand, but deciding instead to take one of the counselor’s hands in both of hers, “it’s been a long time.”


	2. S1 Throwback

“It was a one-time thing.”

“Who decided that, you or him?”

“I didn’t come here to be interrogated.”

“You’re full of shit, Olivia.”

“I haven’t said enough to be full of shit.”

“You are a good liar and have been a good liar ever since you were a little girl. That’s what makes you a good police detective. You didn’t sleep with Cassidy. He’s not your type.”

“You don’t know my type.”

“You screwed your partner, didn’t you?”

“No!”

“You go for men who’ll never be available.”

“That’s not true.”

“You’re a liar. A very talented liar. Always have been.”


	3. Bangs

She used to wear her hair in a ponytail, with bangs cut perfectly by a stylist so they landed in never-split ends just above her eyebrows, but that style soon became too much effort to maintain. So, she did what was easier instead, leaving her hair long and parted straight down the center, with no time-consuming special treatments to make the individual strands appear smoother. The seemingly easier choice, however, didn’t respond well to humidity, half-curling in the heavy late-summer New York City air, frizzing out piece by piece.

She missed her old hairstyles, difficult as they’d been to maintain.


	4. The ADAs

“You and Rafael Barba had a thing, didn’t you?”

Benson shot Pippa a sideways glance through the edge of her wine glass. “Not really.” Her voice came out in a whisper.

“There are rumors,” Pippa said, clearing her throat, “that you’re the new millennium’s Jack McCoy, minus the uncomfortable power relations.” 

Benson nearly did a spit take.

“What are you trying to ask me?” She didn’t look up from her glass. “I’m a trained detective. If you’re trying to ask me something, just ask it.”

“You and Alex Cabot.”

“That’s another _not really_.”

“So not a _no_.”

“Not a no.”


	5. Softball Squad

“But Liv —”

“Don’t _but Liv_ me. Last time I played softball I had a black eye that took three weeks to heal. My hand-eye coordination as a detective doesn’t translate well to swinging a bat behind home plate.”

“Or hitting a ball,” Novak said, lifting her duffel bag over her shoulder. “We’ll get you a designated hitter. You can run. You’ll just run.”

“Why do you want me on your team, anyway? I’m terrible.”

“Because then,” Novak said, unzipping her jacket to reveal her jersey, “we might finally get funding for uniforms that say _Special Victims_ instead of _Sex Crimes_.”


	6. Fav Character

“When I met him, he came off as a little bit of an asshole, but you could see that there was a real spark for justice in his eyes, and that spark bore out in everything he did in the courtroom. He was an advocate for believing women. I knew there were a few things we didn’t agree on, relics from his childhood, maybe, but I always thought he was on an arc towards more justice. He was supposed to be a judge, it was his dream, it was what his grandmother assured him of when no one else did.”


	7. Fav Season

“If it’s not my place,” Benson said, “I understand.”

Pippa let out a shallow sigh. “We’re divorced. The kids see him during supervised visits.”

Benson nodded. Although the fallout from the Hank Abraham case had led to more serious charges, bigger fish to fry, Benson had worried at the time that Pippa was not going to make the most reasonable, ethical decisions. The worry had remained at the back of Benson’s mind even after Pippa left corporate counsel.

_She’ll come back_, Barba had assured her.

And she did. Benson had forgotten how dedicated and pale-green-eyed and clever Pippa Cox was.


	8. Fav ADA

They’d kissed once, Barba and Benson, a long slow lingering kiss when they were at her place worrying over a difficult case.

When he pulled away, his eyes were red and glassy.

“Olivia,” he said, “I’m not the person you think I am. Not anymore.”

“You are the Honorable Rafael Barba. You _will be_ the Honorable Rafael Barba.”

He swallowed hard, then closed his hands over hers as if they were praying together. “Please don’t try to reassure me.” His voice cracked. “I will never be a judge. Trust me on this, and nothing else, other than _I love you_.”


	9. Fav Judge

The meeting consisted of Lieutenant Olivia Benson, Corporate Counsel representative Pippa Cox, defense attorney Rita Calhoun, and Judge Elana Barth. They were in Barth’s chambers, negotiating a deal that was supposed to have been finalized weeks ago. 

“If this was any other situation, he’d be charged with DV assault,” Rita insisted.

“But he’s 16,” Pippa said.

“He broke his mother’s bones. What about my client?”

“I thought we had a deal, folks,” Barth said.

“We do,” Pippa promised.

They were quiet for a split second, prompting Rita to look around. “Nobody,” she said, “_nobody_ bring up you-know-who.”

The women laughed.


	10. Free Day

They’d tried twice.

The first time, Benson’s heart wasn’t in it (but actually her heart was entirely in it and she had somewhat of a crush on her colleague). She was terrified, and hated herself for being terrified.

The second time, Benson was older, ready to confront parts of herself that might, after so many years, bring her a little bit of joy. But Cabot was slowly losing faith in the justice system and therefore losing faith in Benson.

Benson wished she could love happily, unworriedly, without the responsibility of representing an entire flawed justice system weighing on her shoulders.


	11. The Guys

“You okay, Carisi?” Fin asked reluctantly, knowing there was a good chance the detective might answer his question.

“Yeah,” Carisi said, leaning forward in his chair, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead.

“You need to take a day?”

“I’m fine.”

“Nothing’s been the same around here since Barba ate that baby.”

“What?” Carisi sputtered.

“Easier than the truth.”

Carisi lifted his head. “You know there’s been chatter about how he and Dworkin were in cahoots, might have taken advantage of us, including the Lieu, to run a test case.”

“It’s easier to say _Barba ate that baby_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Barba ate that baby" is lifted from several [Twitter users](https://twitter.com/lesbianrollins/status/1163090554185486341) who are younger and funnier than I am.


	12. The Girls

“True story,” Rollins said, smirking as she lifted her beer bottle to her lips, “I had a crush on you when I was first transferred into SVU.”

“How many have you had?”

“Crushes?”

“Beers.”

“Half,” Rollins told her. “And no, I dont have a crush on you anymore. We’re friends. I just really looked up to you, the kind of work you did.”

Benson glanced up towards a television near their booth at Forlini’s. The TV was off, unlike the two at the bar. “There are a lot of stories,” she said, “that I don’t know how to tell yet.”


	13. Fav Benson Haircut

“You know what haircut I always liked on you?” Pippa said. They’d finished off a bottle of wine and both women had their feet up on Benson’s coffee table. 

Pippa’s kids were on a court-ordered overnight visit with their paternal grandparents, and the attorney was terrified, though she hadn’t yet shared that with her companion.

Benson knew, though.

“Tell me.”

“On second thought, that makes me sound like a colleague who’s kept track of your haircuts, which would make me an —”

“Don’t you dare finish that.”

“Awful person.”

“You,” Benson said, “had better correct your _awful person_ compass now, ma’am.”


	14. Fav Previous Character

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although Rafael Barba is technically my favorite previous character, I think of him as still an integral part of the show because of FANFIC ;-). I've chosen to go with my second favorite previous character here.

On a breezy night in uptown Manhattan, John Munch was on a rant, a fairly good one. “This synagogue here,” he said, nudging Benson, “is where they filmed last week’s episode of New York Detectives: Harbor Unit.”

“I haven’t watched that show since 1994. Can’t believe it’s still on.”

“Thank God the rabbi who revived the congregation here thirty years ago wasn’t alive to see the scenes they used the building for.”

“I thought you were a card-carrying atheist.”

“I am, but I can still say “thank God” and hope the rabbi haunts the guy who wrote that episode forever.”


	15. Free Day 2

They looped back around on Riverside Drive, heading towards the subway. 

“Have you told Noah yet?” Munch asked.

“We’ve all had dinner together.”

“All?”

“Yes. The two of us and all three kids. Three or four times already, actually.”

“But you haven’t told him.”

“Sergeant Munch,” she said, linking arms with her friend, “I haven’t told _anyone_.”

“What am I, a big nobody?”

“You’re the only one I trust not to be confused.” She patted his arm. “The last thing I need is to have to help other people sort through _their_ confusion about the narrative arc of _my_ life.”


	16. Fav Villain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Fav" intended loosely here :-P

“One thing I’ve learned in my 105 years on this earth,” Munch said, and Benson nudged him, a big smile forming on her face, “is that we all have very different stories to tell, very different narrative arcs.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’ve lived a thousand lives.”

“You have.” Arms still linked together, Munch grabbed her gloved hand. “Personally, my favorite life of yours so far was number eight hundred seventy five, the one where you slapped the shit out of Stabler.”

“You mean when Dale Stuckey murdered our head lab tech? I was saving Elliot’s life.”

“You always were.”


	17. 1.0 or 2.0?

“I had his back in too many ways, for too long,” she admitted. “But I slapped him —”

“You slapped the shit out of him,” Munch corrected. “We saw the bruises.”

“I slapped the shit out of him to get a murderer to trust me.”

“Fin and I knew from the start that you were destined to be the squad’s captain, SVU’s fearless leader.”

“Destined,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I believe in the supernatural inasmuch as it applies to Olivia Benson. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“What about UFOs?”

“That’s natural, not supernatural. You’re going to argue semantics with me, Captain?”


	18. Fav Episode

His stare told her that he’d shut himself down so he wouldn’t have to feel the repercussions of being betrayed — a second or third time — by his childhood friend. She saw his heartbreak and wanted to comfort him.

After Muñoz was arraigned, Barba and Benson sat together on a bench in Foley Square. She rubbed his back, keeping her touches light. He squeezed his eyes shut, and to her, he seemed on the verge of tears. 

“I don’t know how to process this,” he said.

“How can I help?”

He blinked, and she saw a tear run down each cheek.


	19. Benoah

“Pippa is a very special person,” Benson explained to her son.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“She might be,” Benson said, taken by surprise at Noah’s matter-of-factness. “But we haven’t really talked about that yet.”

“She comes over to our apartment at night and kisses you.”

“Noah, I —” Benson pinched the bridge of her nose and laughed. “I love you.”

“But you have to tell her she has to _stay_,” Noah said.

“She is a very special person because she helped keep you safe when you were a little baby. She’s part of the reason I got to be your mom.”


	20. Fav Ship

His only genuine act of mercy was saying goodbye that cold February afternoon.

She’d learned some 15 months later that the Baby Householder affair had been a test case, that Barba was never in danger of serving prison time.

He’d been disbarred, though.

The forehead kiss and tearful speech was his way of saying goodbye without technically betraying her.

Given who he worked for now, the goodbye was merciful, a bullet dodged, and that was the only reason she held on to the tiniest spark of empathy.

He’d shown her mercy so his betrayal of justice wouldn’t break her heart.


	21. The 21st Squad

Everyone who mattered showed up to witness Captain Olivia Benson’s promotion.

“Nobody deserves this more than you,” Rollins said afterwards.

At Munch’s urging, she told everybody why Pippa and her kids were there.

“I never woulda guessed,” Carisi said, and Fin and Rollins separately shot him death glares.

“What I mean is —” He didn’t finish, and hugged her instead, tight, as if she had just given him something he’d desperately needed.

“We don’t all have the same story to tell,” she said, echoing Munch’s sentiment from days earlier, “which is why it’s important that we tell all of the stories.”


End file.
